Photonic generation of arbitrary waveforms based on incoherent wavelength-to-time mapping

Abstract

We demonstrate experimentally a radio frequency arbitrary waveform generator using the incoherent wavelength-to-time mapping technique. The system is implemented by amplitude modulation of a broadband optical resource whose spectrum is reshaped by a programmable optical pulse shaper and transmitted over a single mode fiber link. The shape of the generated waveform is controlled by the optical pulse shaper, and the fiber link introduces a certain group velocity delay to implement wavelength-to-time mapping. Assisted by the flexible optical pulse shaper, we obtain different shapes of optical waveforms, such as rectangle, triangle, and sawtooth waveforms. Furthermore, we also demonstrate ultra-wideband generation, such as Gaussian monocycle, doublet, and triplet waveforms, using the incoherent technique.